ANZCO Foods Canterbury, based in Ashburton, New Zealand is a beef and lamb processing site. As well as being ANZCO Foods’ only site that processes bovine and ovine, it also supports a range of other functions including rendering, fellmongery, and material for ANZCO’s Healthcare business. With over 1000 employees, ANZCO Foods Canterbury has an annual processing capacity of 1.35 million head of sheep/lambs, 110,000 head of cattle and 180,000 head of calves. The site operates all year round, with a peak season from November to May.
The reason we joined WorkWell is to support the development of a healthy work environment and to offer support and education around health and wellness to our people and their families. ANZCO commenced WorkWell in 2022. They now have the WorkWell Bronze accreditation and working towards Silver.
ANZCO held a Fun & Wellness Day at the Hampstead All Sports Club on Saturday 29th March. The event focused on health initiatives, community wellbeing & quality whānau time. Over 20 community and health/education providers were in attendance. With a great variety and mix of groups. This event had approximately 650 staff and families attending, that made it a great success.
The ANZCO BBQs were running continuously to provide kai for everyone. Baskets of fruit and bottled water were provided around the venue.
Games of volleyball, netball and touch rugby continued all day. There was even a softball batting cage for people to use. The games were played all day by the many whānau members who attended.
The atmosphere was fantastic with everyone getting involved with the many different activities available including competitions, giveaways, bouncy castle, music & games.
Challenges included staff engagement and involvement in different activities; we undertake continual communications by way of our newsletters, weekly TV screen slides, posters, emails etc.
The consensus we’ve had both from employees who came and the community groups who sent feedback has been unanimous that the day was an outstanding success and achieved everything we had planned. Our people and their families who came along had a great time with all the different activities, and the groups reported wonderful interaction with everyone they talked to. This is a great example of inspiring the community to improve wellbeing and having fun as well. Well done ANZCO Foods!
Read more articles in our July 2025 Pānui
